In the travel industry there is a continual focus on making travel more convenient and easier for the traveler. This has provoked development of advanced technology, methods and systems to continue to make traveling easier. Online check-in for flights is an example of an advanced technology which reduces queuing time and requires less airline personnel.
One of the most time-consuming and resource consuming processes in a hotel is the check-in desk which handles both the check-in and check-out processes and often many other queries and enquiries. Queuing is frustrating for the traveler and often causes significant delay. In addition, especially at peak times, the hotel has to allocate significant resources to the check-in and check-out processes. In the hospitality industry the use of advanced technology would be helpful in this area. As a result, the travel experience would be more convenient and easier for the traveler and less costly for the hotelier.
US 2003/0208386 discloses a wireless reservation, check-in, access control, check-out and payment system. A mobile terminal is in communication with the reservation, check-in, access control and payment systems of the hotel. Room opening in the hotel is managed by means of the private key transferred to the mobile terminal and then subsequently transmitted to the door via Bluetooth. The system includes the expense of adapting the door to include a Bluetooth emitter and receiver and the requirement of a processor to control and check the received key.
US 2010/0201536 relates to a system and method for accessing a structure using a mobile device. The system is based on RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology and all the hotel doors have to be equipped with an RFID reader. Short-range wireless communications detect the proximity of the user's mobile device to effect opening. Again, this system requires adaptation of the doors and incurs the cost of adding equipment to every door used within the system.
US 2010/0191551 (Drance et al.) discloses a method and system to provide a remote communication between a user and a hotel registration system by using a smart phone. The user can remotely ask for a check-in process by sending a request to the hotel registration system. The user sends identification information which relates to a credit card number or a hotel reservation number, for example. In addition, the smart phone can operate as a key for the room door. The hotel registration system can send an electronic key in a form of a pattern for an electrical reader located near the room door. Again, the system requires costly equipment to be added to every door in each hotel.
In a large infrastructure, such as a hotel, the expense of adding readers or other devices to every door in each hotel is a huge expense which has made the prior art systems mainly unworkable.
A need still exists for a method and system which overcomes the problems of the prior art and can add the convenience and ease of advanced technology to the processes and methodologies of gaining access to a hotel room or the like.
One object of the present invention is to overcome at least some of the problems associated with the prior art.